


Glossolalia

by eve11



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Vignette, alien planets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eve11/pseuds/eve11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Like all the other tourists, we're here for the Fable."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glossolalia

**Author's Note:**

> Written for significantowl for the 2009 fandom stocking fic exchange.

**  
On Fable, the Doctor took two steps beyond the TARDIS door and then nearly took a header into Donna's side. She caught his arm and he steadied himself, blinking down at the pale pink sand.

"You all right?" she asked.

"Mmm, fine," he said, staring back at his ship in a bit of a daze. "The psychic dampeners are stronger than I remember, that's all."

"What are they, then? Some kind of transmitter?"

The Doctor answered distractedly, without turning around. "Yes, that's right. Some kind of transmitter."

Donna looked around for any sign of the offending psychic dampeners, but there was nothing that yelled "giant transmitter" to her. No radio towers, or big industrial cones, or twin metal rods with lightning arcing across them. Instead, it was calm and serene, with hills rising from the sand in smooth lines, in a color palette like the inside of a seashell. The TARDIS, boxy and primary blue, stood out like a sore thumb.

"Are we--hold on," Donna said, eyeing her swaying companion up and down. "Does that mean you're psychic?"

"Telepathic. And right now, no, I'm not." He closed the TARDIS door tentatively. Then he took a deep breath, exhaled, and ran a hand through his hair. Apparently considering himself recovered, he looked up with a smile, only to meet Donna's frown.

"Have you been reading my mind all this time?" she asked.

"Nope," he said, undaunted. "Come on."

Donna pointed to her ear for emphasis, and then had to hurry across the sand to catch the Doctor as he breezed right past her. "Remember, this brain is off limits!" she called to his back.

"Stop dawdling and come on!" was the only reply.

There was a village around the bend that looked like half luau, half paper hornets nests, all done in pastels. The Doctor charged ahead, but Donna lingered at a wooden hut, looking at a set of knickknacks that wouldn't be out of place in a Brighton tourist shop. She picked up a small statue that looked like a cross between a cathedral and an anthill. The shop-owner--humanoid but taller and a bit bluer than human--said something, and Donna's head shot up.

"Beg your pardon, mate?" she asked.

The owner garbled something else at her, looking annoyed. It took Donna a moment to realize she hadn't understood the man. She hadn't needed any language other than English since she'd been in Egypt. On her own.

The man frowned at her. Well, at least that was universal. Donna smiled her best apologetic smile, set the figurine down, and sped off to catch up with the Doctor. He was bringing up the end of a long line of people, of all shapes and sizes, heading toward a big building that looked exactly like the abandoned figurine. Donna caught his stride.

"I can't understand anyone."

The Doctor huffed and kept walking. "We are in the middle of a big telepathic dampening field. Even the TARDIS translation circuits can't re-route through that when our brains--well, more like my brain--aren't receiving."

"The TARDIS translator is telepathic?" Donna asked.

This time the Doctor stopped. "Yes, what--what else would it be?"

"I dunno, I just--I thought it would be more. . . scientific."

"Telepathy _is_ science," the Doctor whispered as they filed into the anthill cathedral. "It's also unwelcome on Fable."

"And we're here to put a stop to that?" Donna whispered back. "Change their minds?"

"No," the Doctor said, working his way through the crowd until he came to a wrought iron railing. "Like all the other tourists, we're here for the Fable."

Donna reached the railing and stared. The building hadn't looked so large on the outside, but the chamber that started right past the tips of her toes was enormous. A vast chasm stretched away down into the earth, with a giant spire arising from the middle to touch the tip of the glass domed ceiling. Light streamed in, reflected down the spire from a checkerboard of mirror-smooth surfaces on the far walls. Walkways, platforms and bridges dotted the spire, populated by throngs of reedy blue people in thin robes. Sound was everywhere, a cacophony of foreign voices blending together like white noise, then focused in the acoustics of the chamber, resonating and reverberating, like the whole room had a pulse.

"The people of Fable are empaths, and empathic projectors" the Doctor murmured in Donna's ear. "Their monks have a universal language, and every year they use it to tell the Fable."

"Universal language?" Donna watched as the chaotic movements of the robed figures on the spire started to take a semblance of order, like they were finding designated places. "How do you mean?"

"Can't be translated. But more than that, it doesn't need to be." The Doctor scanned the cathedral ceiling, pondering. "I've never actually heard it. Last time I was here--well, a TARDIS is one thing, but back then I still had a link to the Matrix . . ." He closed his eyes, letting the words trail off, and took a breath before continuing.

"It changes every year. They say, everyone here will hear the Fable, just right here, right now. There's no re-telling."

The room started settling. Syllables and rumbles spiraled up and down the spire, as though the monks were musicians tuning their instruments.

"How does that work, then?" Donna whispered. "How can we understand if we can't translate?"

The Doctor smiled, eyes dancing with excitement. "I don't know."

Donna shivered, nervous and strangely frightened, but keeping silent as the crowd hushed and stilled around them. The Doctor gestured, and she snuck closer to him, putting an arm around his waist as he held her shoulder.

At the base of the spire, down so far that the storytellers were just specks of blue in the gloom, the Fable began.

**


End file.
